Return to Dust

Two drifters, one a gentle but slow giant, try to make money working the fields during the Depression so they can fulfill their dreams.

Mario and Ana, in voluntary exile from Buenos Aires, live in a remote Argentine valley with their 12-year-old son Ernesto. Mario runs a school and a wool cooperative; Ana, a doctor, heads a clinic with Nelda, a progressive nun. Into this idealistic family comes Hans, a jaded Spanish geological engineer -- surveying the land for the local patron, to see if it can be dammed for hydro-electric power, which would drive the peasants from the land into the cities.

The story of three women searching for more potent, meaningful lives. Each is alive at a different time and place, all are linked by their yearnings and their fears. Their stories intertwine, and finally come together in a surprising, transcendent moment of shared recognition.

A married farmer falls under the spell of a slatternly woman from the city, who tries to convince him to drown his wife.

The mother of a severely traumatized daughter enlists the aid of a unique horse trainer to help the girl's equally injured horse.

War journalist Paul Prior returns to his New Zealand hometown after his father’s death, rekindling strained relationships with his brother and memories of a troubled past. He befriends Celia, a curious and aspiring writer, who shares a fascination with his world. When Celia mysteriously disappears, Paul becomes the prime suspect, forcing him to confront buried secrets and uncover the dark truths of his family and community.

David Sumner, a mild-mannered academic from the United States, marries Amy, an Englishwoman. In order to escape a hectic stateside lifestyle, David and his wife relocate to the small town in rural Cornwall where Amy was raised. There, David is ostracized by the brutish men of the village, including Amy's old flame, Charlie. Eventually the taunts escalate.

Robert Hansen, 34, a young police officer from Copenhagen, is transferred against his will to the small town of Skarrild in Southern Jutland as a substitute Marshall. The transfer is Robert’s chance to start over. Whether he is allowed to return to his job in Copenhagen, all depends on how well he performs in this frontier town.

The fates of horses, and the people who own and command them, are revealed as Black Beauty narrates the circle of his life.

In lyrical switches between the present and the past, Taeko contemplates the arc of her life, and wonders if she has been true to the dreams of her childhood self.

Though young Jane Austen's financially strapped parents expect her to marry the nephew of wealthy Lady Gresham, Jane herself knows that such a union will destroy her creativity and sense of self-worth. Instead, she becomes involved with Tom Lefroy, a charming but penniless apprentice lawyer who gives her the knowledge of the heart she needs for her future career as a novelist.

Sophie, a quiet and shy maid working for an upper-class French family, finds a friend in the energetic and uncompromising postmaster Jeanne, who encourages her to stand up against her bourgeois employers.

What if a child from another world crash-landed on Earth, but instead of becoming a hero to mankind, he proved to be something far more sinister?